News reports from the Bay Area report on alleged fraternity sexual assaults at UC-Berkeley. However, the details on what happened, as reported in the commercial press and the student-run Daily Californian, are unclear.
From the Oakland Tribune: A security alert was issued Friday by UC Berkeley police after a fraternity leader claimed a member of his fraternity had been sexually assaulted by another member.
UC police put out alerts in both incidents under reporting guidelines mandated by the federal Clery Act...
Full story at http://www.insidebayarea.com/breaking-news/ci_26747632/uc-berkeley-issues-alert-after-report-that-5
The Daily Californian story is similar: http://www.dailycal.org/2014/10/17/fraternity-member-reports-sexually-assaulted-another-member/
At the same time, a Berkeley student charged with rape was declared factually innocent by a judge. Such judicial declarations are unusual:
Full story at http://www.dailycal.org/2014/10/17/rape-charge-uc-berkeley-student-dismissed/
These stories raise issues about how well campus authorities will be able to handle such events. At Harvard, for example, there is a big brouhaha over an op ed written by a group of law school faculty suggesting that Harvard's sexual harassment/assault processes lack adequate due process:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/10/14/rethink-harvard-sexual-harassment-policy/HFDDiZN7nU2UwuUuWMnqbM/story.html; http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/10/14/harvard-law-professors-want-university-new-sexual-harassment-policy-changed/HZ72eaMcLgRgoq4DL9ZBOO/story.html; and http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/education/harvard-law-professors-back-away-from-sexual-misconduct-policy.html
We'll be watching the mid-November Regents meetings to see how these issues play out. One suspects that the actual implementation of campus procedures will not go as smoothly as administrators hope. As noted in a previous blog posting, it was encouraging that Chancellor Block has expressed skepticism over the value of yet another mandatory "training" program for faculty related to the sexual harassment/assault policy, online or otherwise. See http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2014/10/good-idea.html
No comments:
Post a Comment